•The Show Us Your Vintage Camera Thread•

[star camera company]

The Kodak Autographic, in all its variations, is common as sin and “sort of” useable. I “rediscovered” mine in my attic, this was a trash picking find about age 13....the camera was about 50 years old then, so geez a scary thought, I’ve owned this thing half it’s life!! About 1975 I worked on a golf course and took an early morning color 11x14 which won a photo contest! Anyway it was quite faded as these often are, I figured “what the hell” and using Parker black ink recolored the whole camera. Wow! It Really Worked! ••••••. This camera is 116. Back in the day a favorite pastime was driving to the small towns and searching mom and pop drugstores for oddball film. Now, not so . The film opening is 2 1/2” by 4 1/4”. 120 is 2 1/2” wide so would perform as 116 of course existing frame numbers would appear. Easy of course to shim out 120 to 116 spoil width, my concern is film number locations vs window. I’m sure all this tge googlefingertio

 

[IanG]

I was given this about 10 days ago:

It's a No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, taking 108 roll film and 41⁄4 × 31⁄4 in format.

Made between 1898 and before 1910, by 1910 all Kodak cameras sold in the UK had British amde lenses, this has a Bausch & Lomb shutter and lens. The shutter works fine the air release piston is missing in the pjoto (at the moment it's inside the film chamber just missing two screws to refit it).

I was given another Kodak folding camera a couple of weeks earlier by the same person.

This is a 620 Kodak Junior, it still has a film in it.

Ian

 

[star camera company]

Have you any Hüttig Cameras?

 

[IanG]

Have you any Hüttig Cameras?

Not that I can identify as such. One problem is some (perhaps many) Hüttig cameras were made for or sold by other manufacturers, Butcher and Sons were one and I think Eastman Kodak another, but there were others. I need to check and find the references.

Ian

 

[IanG]

The Kodak No 3 I was given has a typical Hüttig look to the front standard, and the back locks are similar to a Hüttig Lloyd camera. I suspect that helps me date the camera to before the formation of ICA, and the 1910 BJPA Kodak advert image of a No 3 has a different front standard.

I should say there's quite a variety of Hüttig front standards but this one has many features common to other Hüttig made cameras I've seen.

Ian

 

[star camera company]

Have you ever seen Any cameras that “painted” knobs in red similar to this?

 

[IanG]

View attachment 183953 Have you ever seen Any cameras that “painted” knobs in red similar to this?

Can we see more of the camera ?

I was wrong my Kodak No 3 Folding camera has a Kodak ball bearing shutter introduced in 1909, I've just come across the shutter in the 1910 BJP Almanac so it was introduced the year before.

The ball bearing shutter appears to be made by Bausch and Lomb for Kodak as some parts are very similar to my 3 B&L shutters.

Ian

 

[star camera company]

Well.....the “rest of the camera”.....a great puzzle to me (yet). But, have you ever seen any similar red painted knobs?

 

[IanG]

I've seen all sorts of weird bits on cameras that doesn't look familiar.

Ian

 

[NGH]

Another one temporarily in the collection...

Kodak 35 by Nigel, on Flickr

 

[star camera company]

I had never really “bonded” with my Leica 1A because I bought it with a really crummy home recover job....thin leather over the screws, but I just never got around to a re-recover, until just now. •••• from Cameraleather.com great service and an exceptional fit. The material is close to the early Leica pattern, and it feels Great in hand. Sometimes people are taken a bit aback at the actual “feel” of an early Leica covering. Vulcanite, a resin derived material, doesn’t feel warm and cheery like leather. Kind of cold, Yes indeed you can still get the exact recover from a firm in the U.K., I did settle on this covering to avoid turnaround times. but in retrospect might re-re—recover someday••••• Anyway, recovering the old relic made a World of difference to me. This Leica Model 1A, in my opinion, represents the greatest stride in photographic cameras ever. It turns 90 in a few days! PS Mike Eckman has done a full workuo review on my camera and it will go online soon

 

[IanG]

Nice camera.

I wouldn't say the greatest step because the technology behind the camerawasn't new, self capping focal plane shutters had been around for quite a few years.

What was important was the miniaturisation and reliability and the introduction of 35mm format for still photography. Leitz weren't the first to market a 35mm camera, rather the first to offer a practical range of interchangeable lens rangefinder cameras, after the first fixed lens versions some with leaf shutters.

More importantly other companies like Hugo Meyey made high quality lenses like a 50mm f1.5 Plasmat for them (your model) before Leitz themselves, Meyer also sold Leitz cameras. £17 5s for a 1a with a 50mm f3.5 Elmar, £39 with a Meyer 50mm f1.5 Plasmat, in 1930.

A link often missed is the huge improvement in film emulsions that occurred just after the introduction of Leicas particularly in Europe. Ilford and Agfa were way ahead of Eastman Kodak, Ilford'd Fast Pan Chromatic and Hypersensitibe Panchromatic films (& plates) came out in 1933/4 and were the first generation of modern thinner fine grained emulsions. Kodak introduced a new equivalent range of films to catch up Pan-X, Plus-X Super-XX & Tri-X in 1939 but had already been beaten to it by Ilord FP2 and HP2 in 1937.

It was the move to 35mm in Europe that spurred emulsion improvements but there was also a parallel change in the way films were exposed and developed, new "fine grain" developers were introduced as well. Hans Windisch in "Die Neu Foto Schule" also published in English as The New Photo School" and various Leica publications were at the forefront of the new ways of working. Essentially this was more accurate exposure and no over development as both over exposure and development increased grain and also sharpness so resolution. It did help that accurate exposure meters were just being introduced and Gossen advertised meters in the first copies of The New Photo School. It's the way we still work.

So that step change is really a number of coinciding changes that allowed 35mm to thrive and become accepted.

Ian

 

[IanG]

Vintage cameras needed vintage meters, here's my 1930's AVO meter.

Still works perfectly, came with it's case and instructions, bought for £2 at a Flea market in Cornwall. It has a reversible printed aluminium plate with tables on one side for cine use the other for stills.

Ian

 

[vin88]

how about a "sept camera" ? ill try to post the photo. vin ( i'll take a better pic. of it and submit).

 

[crf8]

Christmas gift from wife.
From Camerapedia: The No. 1 and No. 1A Pocket Kodak was a folding camera. It made 2 ½×4 ¼ " exposures. The Pocket No. 1 used 120 film and the Pocket No. 1A used A116 film.

Between 1908 and 1912 the Kodak Company manufactured the 1A Special model. The 1A Autographic Special was the autographic variant beginning in 1914, allowing the photographer to make notes on the film


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